


Automatic

by Major



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 06:35:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8879701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Major/pseuds/Major
Summary: Cisco wants to do a tandem bungee jump with Caitlin, but it takes some convincing.





	

Cisco looked straight up at the crane 160 feet in the air where they would be lifted soon to be strapped up and tossed over. Caitlin shut him down outright when he first broached the subject of a tandem bungee jump together, but she agreed to look at the extensive information he compiled on its general safety to appease her totally rational if fun-killing desire to avoid a sudden and excruciating death. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was that changed her mind, but she agreed to it a month ago.

Now, there they were, ready to go at the Free Flyers bungee jumping location. It wasn’t a bad spot for it either. It overlooked the water. They would have a good view. The only spectator they could round up was Joe. Everyone else had to work (or was ‘accidentally’ directed to the wrong location, in HR’s case). Joe had taken a late lunch to be there and was not helping the pre-jump jitters at all as he scrolled through his phone and reported on every bungee jumping accident since its inception. His eyes sparkled with mischief. Dude knew exactly what he was doing. Cisco was already plotting his revenge. It would be stealth and possibly included a skunk.

"Cisco, I don't know about this." Caitlin was pulling her hair back into a ponytail in preparation, but her eyes were warning that she was about to bolt.

She’d been cool right up until the pair ahead of them had leapt off the platform and flew screaming towards the ground. They lived, but Caitlin started staring ahead blankly like their cords had snapped and they hit the ground like confetti eggs.

They made it too far to ditch out now. They booked the jump four weeks in advance, put down a deposit, got medical clearance - well, okay, Caitlin looked them over and decided their hearts wouldn’t give out if they took the leap. They did everything short of a blood oath.

His hair blew with the rush of Barry’s sudden appearance, and he flipped around to see him standing there beside Joe. One look at Caitlin’s stricken face, and he grinned like someone told him Jurassic Park was real and he could take a tour on the back of a Brachiosaurus.

"I knew you would chicken out!"

Cisco raised a hand with a scoff. "She's not chickening out. What are you even doing here? I thought you had to work?"

"I told Julian I had to go to the restroom."

That was unfortunate since Joe was already laying on the horror stories pretty thick, and he doubted Barry was there to give out encouraging pats since he was betting on them not going through with it. "We might be here a while. We're not even up on the crane yet."

Barry shrugged. "I'll ask him for a Tums when I get back. He'll come to his own conclusions. Anyway, you owe me twenty bucks."

"I owe you nothing."

"Caitlin, it's totally fine if you don't want to do this," Barry comforted her, which wasn't as compassionate as it appeared on the outside, considering he stood to profit from her wimping out at the last minute. "Let me run you back to the lab. I only came to get visual proof you guys backed out anyway since I knew Cisco would try to doctor evidence to the contrary."

Joe wasn’t having his afternoon spoiled. "Well, I came to talk Caitlin out of this crazy business and watch you," he pointed at Cisco, "scream your head off when you went over alone."

Uh-huh, the skunk was confirmed.

"I'm not screaming. I plan to play this really cool.” Cisco turned to Barry. "And you're not running her anywhere. We came to jump. We're jumping. Now, excuse us a minute. We need to talk about something totally unrelated to any of this ridiculous and offensive scaredy-cat talk, kay?"

He took Caitlin by the elbow and walked her away across the grass out of earshot, turning her so her back was to them and only he had to pointedly pretend not to see Joe flailing his arms while fake falling to his fake death. He ignored him and Barry’s laughter.

Caitlin shook her head in regret. "Cisco, you know I would do anything for you—"

"No. Stop. Do not give me the chickening out speech!” he rushed out in a hushed whisper. “If only because I bet Barry twenty bucks you wouldn't back out. Pride doesn’t grow on trees."

“Why are we doing this again?”

“Because we’re alive.” That was the answer he kept giving whenever he asked himself the same thing.

“Yes, but we’re alive most days, and we don’t usually jump off really, really high things as a consequence. Why are we doing this now? We were alive last month, and that just ended in testing the hoverboard demo at the mall and eating smoothies on our days off. We’ve strayed pretty far from smoothie territory.”

It was hard to frame it in a way that explained the urgency he felt about it since he didn’t quite understand it himself, so he came at it from another angle.

“You know if you don’t jump that Barry is going to tease you. People might cluck at you. So you have to. Everyone knows you should always cave to peer pressure.”

“That’s playground logic, and also, wrong."

“Caitlin.” Cisco grabbed her shoulders and leaned in, because losing a twenty to Barry didn’t matter as much as it did that he jump. The impulse was buried in a place he was afraid to look at too closely. He had to jump, and he didn’t want to do it without Caitlin. “You can do this.”

“I…” Caitlin paused mid-retort and pressed her lips together tightly, “…do not share your confidence.”

But she released a deep breath and marched for the steps up to the crane. He fist pumped behind her back and looked over at their friends as he started after her to see Barry shaking his head and smiling, still skeptical.

One of their instructors was an enthusiastic woman named Becky whose voice slowly faded to nonexistence the higher they got. Cisco held on to the safety rail and looked out at the lake and the sky that stretched out forever, clear and bright. Caitlin stayed a step behind, paying far more detailed attention to everything Becky was saying but came up to his side when the crane came to a stop nearly two hundred feet in the air.

He expected more last minute jitters, but Caitlin had a small smile on her face as she took in the view.

“We’re alive,” she said softly, and just like that, he got it and knew she did too.

He had his brother in his heart and a need to fight the vacancy he left in his life. He had to live as much and as hard as he could for as long as he could, because time came for everyone. There wasn’t enough space for regrets. He had to jump, because Dante couldn’t.

Caitlin nudged his side with hers. “I can jump. We can.”

Hell yeah. He resisted the heaviness building in his chest and smiled back at her.

The instructors got them in their safety harnesses, checked it once top to bottom, then all over again. Then a third time when he asked if they were totally a hundred percent sure that they weren’t going to slip out and turn into cranberry sauce. Their ankles were strapped together beside the open gate, and he was starting to feel excited for the adrenaline rush.

Then he made the mistake of looking directly down and having to wrestle an immediate vertigo-induced stomach flip at the long way to the ground. “I was wrong. We need to ditch out or meet the Reaper.”

Caitlin chuckled. “Just think, Barry’s here. If the cords snap, he can run up and catch us.”

“Shh. We do not say ordscay napsay on the platform.”

Becky slapped him on the back when she asked if they were ready, and he so did not appreciate the way it made him wobble. There were different rules up there from the ground. Any touching should be gentle and refrain from nearly plunging someone to their possible doom, unprepared.

Caitlin looked out at the lake, and even if he could feel how tense she was that close, she had to admit, “It’s beautiful here.”

“Yeah,” Cisco agreed. It was scary and came with no guarantees, but he couldn’t deny that it was a hell of a thing being able to jump.

Still, they’d both been kidnapped, attacked, nearly killed. Even a cat would have been running out of lives by now.

“First one to die loses?” he suggested.

She was too nervous to laugh, but he broke through the brass of it to get a small hint of a smile. “Let’s… call this one a tie.”

It was automatic to reach for Caitlin when he was upset or worried, or in this case, terrified that he was fixing to get some firsthand empathy for the plight of a busted piñata. So when the instructor told them to shuffle into place and hold on to each other, he wrapped his arms around her in a hug he had wanted since he first looked down.

“Heads together,” Becky directed them, and they curved into each other instinctively, heads nestling into shoulders for comfort as much as technical positioning. Caitlin hugged him back, and the embrace was fevered with the anxiety of a fall and excitement for the jump.

Time slowed with the countdown, and he had time to wonder if Dante would really have ever gotten around to bungee jumping like he always claimed to want to ‘when he got around to it’. Too many people put things off until it was too late, and their last chance was gone.

“Three, two…”

“This one’s for you, hermano,” he murmured.

Caitlin’s arms tightened around him.

“One—”

The instructor gave them a push, and they fell sideways off the platform and over the edge. Caitlin gave a small squeak as they tipped that blew up into a full scream as they dove. Freefalling through the air was worse and better than any roller coaster, plane turbulence, or creaky elevator. The cord stretched to its full capacity, and the resistance slowed them just enough to pause her screams until they were propelled back into the air, towards the sky. That part felt like flying. They came back down together and swept through the air like a pendulum.

Laughter rolled out of him, some mix of giddiness and relief.

Cold steam slipped from Caitlin’s lips without the cuffs to suppress her powers and her emotions so heightened, but she was pumped full of the same adrenaline that was coursing through him and making him hyper aware of everything: her, the sky, the motion, the world—it left her beaming at him where they hung and swung gently through the air upside down.

“It’s okay,” he assured her, smiling back, and felt that - in that moment - maybe it was true. “We’re alive.”


End file.
